Thursday, March 25, 2010

Obamacare Unconstitutional, the United States Now a Tyranny

A reader makes the claim that Congress has the power to tax, and since the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act (Obamacare) is a form of taxation, that it is constitutional. This is mistaken. Obamacare is unconstitutional, as is much of the legislation that the federal government has passed since the New Deal of the 1930s. The Supreme Court has arrogated power to the federal government since then without concern for the Constitution. The separation of powers on which the Constitution is based broke down decades ago, as the Supreme Court is little more than a publicity wing for federal tyrants. The reason is that Franklin D. Roosevelt had threatened the Court that he would increase the number of justices and plant in the Court a large number of socialists who have no regard for freedom and the American way of life unless it declared several bills, including the National Labor Relations Act, constitutional. Before the threat the Supreme Court refused to do so. After Roosevelt's threat, they changed their vote.

Preferring power over legal concerns and decency, the Supreme Court since the 1930s has been willing to justify virtually any and every expansion of federal power, even those that obviously violate the Constitution. Internment of Japanese in concentration camps? No problem. Laws that cripple the American economy? No problem. Laws that allow government to steal citizens' land and give it to private developers? No problem. There has been scarcely an ugly, murderous expansion of government that the Supreme Court has not been willing to declare "constitutional".

The Supreme Court is not really a court in most peoples' understanding of the word. Rather, it is a propaganda agency along the lines of the Soviet state newspaper Izvestia whose aim was to justify tyranny.

Analysis

It is perfectly constitutional for the federal government to levy taxes on the states. This is permitted by Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, which states:

"The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

Article I Section 9 clarifies the last sentence, restricting the power to tax quite specifically:

"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

The capitation tax that Obamacare charges is not proportioned. The sixteenth amendment was passed to allow income taxation that is not proportioned. However, the Obamacare tax is not an income tax. It is an unproportioned direct tax. Therefore, it is unconstitutional.

The sixteenth amendment, which eliminates the apportionment requirement with respect to income, does not apply to a health care capitation tax:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

Nor can other provisions of the Constitution be used to justify Obamacare.

The necessary and proper clause states:

"The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

Hamilton used the necessary and proper clause to justify the establishment of a national or central bank (the Fed). However, health reform is not relevant to the powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution. Fixing broken arms and knee surgery are not among the duties granted to Congress. Hence, the necessary and proper clause does not apply.

The Tenth Amendment is quite clear. It states:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Virtually all of the legislation that the federal government has passed in its history violates the Tenth Amendment, arguably including the Fed (in other words, many, such as President Andrew Jackson, have held that Hamilton was wrong).

Orwellian Claim of Interstate Commerce Regulation

Much of the federal legislation that has been passed since the 1930s has claimed to regulate interstate commerce, which is generally untrue. In other words, the Supreme Court and Congress have simply lied in order to justify passage of legislation that they deem expedient. Which is to say that the Constitution has been a dead letter for many decades, not that it is a living organism. The purpose of the Constitution is not to pretend that we have a legitimate government, but to separate and limit the powers of government so that the energies of the people can be directed toward progress. The federal government has been a serious impediment to progress since the 19th century, and in recent decades has been increasingly so. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has been eager to extend the powers of the state in every way inconsistent with the Constitution. Hence, the United States is no longer a Republic but a violent tyranny.

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Mitchell Langbert

About Me

I have researched and written about employee benefit issues and in my previous life was a corporate benefits administrator. I am currently associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. I hold a Ph.D. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, an MBA from UCLA and an AB from Sarah Lawrence College. I am working on a project involving public policy. I blog on academic and political topics.